The present invention relates to a method of forming groups of flat articles on edge.
The present invention is especially suitable for use in the food industry for grouping flat articles such as biscuits or similar, to which application the following description refers purely by way of example.
One known method of forming groups of flat articles on edge is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,725, wherein the articles, laid flat and fed successively to the outlet of a conveyor surface, are positioned on edge as they travel along a curved channel extending downwards from the conveyor outlet; are withdrawn, on edge, from the bottom end of the curved channel by a pocket conveyor; and are fed, spaced apart, to a follow-up user device.
Though advantageous for forming groups of rigid articles of a certain consistency, such as sweets, the above method presents serious drawbacks when dealing with fragile articles such as biscuits. In this case, in fact, each biscuit at the bottom end of the curved channel supports all the others stacked on edge along the channel, so that, when it is withdrawn from the bottom of the stack, the others are jogged down along the channel, thus resulting in repeated impact which, though safely withstandable by articles such as sweets, may result in crumbling of the biscuits inside the curved channel.